Napoleonic Game Day Test Game

Last Friday a few of us got together to help our friend Ed M. test some of the components of a HUGE Napoleonic game he's running at the upcoming club game day in October. Ed wanted to get a significant amount of the troops onto a table larger than he can fit in his game room, so he asked to use my 12-foot table. I was happy to help! Ed's write-up of the game with more photos can be seen on his blog. The scenario is an alternate Waterloo campaign featuring Ed's beautiful French and Prussian figures. I'll leave more of the description of the game for the reader to discover over at Ed's excellent Blog.

Left to right, French marshals, Earl, Ralph and Peter in the opening moves of the game.

Prussian marshal Mike in the background and CinC Bob in the foreground. I rounded out the Prussian test team.

The best shots I could get of the full expanse of the table. It's tough to get far enough away from a 12-foot table in an 18-foot room! That's a LOT of figures. For game day this table will be 18 feet long, so there should be good room for manoeuvring. Where there was on the flanks in this game it was quite interesting.

Obligatory eye-candy shots of Ed's beautiful figures.

The game started out with Bob being uncharacteristically aggressive with his Landwher cavalry, with predictable results. Earl's infantry and Artillery were deadly and when they couldn't finish the job Ralph's joined in on the fun. Deadly.

On our left flank Peter's cavalry charged Mike's cavalry across a stream, jumping it like it was a casual steeple chase course, sending Mike's cavalry to the rear in disarray with Peter's cavalry in hot pursuit breaking through the Prussian lines causing Bob to commit some reserves there to clean up the mess.

On the left flank I sent my Landwher infantry off on an errand to secure the town on our left while Earl's cavalry secured the French flank opposite me. My attacks against Earl's infantry there were unsuccessful, and lucky for me the game was called due to the hour before his cavalry could sweep into my Landwher.

It was a fun night and I believe Ed got what he needed for information in order to make the club's game day game even better.

For blog purposes I'm only counting this as half a game hosted. Ed did all the work, I just provided the table and some terrain. Thanks for the fun game Ed.